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East Consulting’s team in Jyväskylä is happy to announce the joining of a new member.

Hua is majoring in International Business and Entrepreneurship M.Sc. program from the University of Jyväskylä. Hua worked as a buyer and a project leader in Nokia China and Jabil Guangzhou for over six years before moving to Finland. She worked in marketing for China business development in a manufacturing company in Finland. Hua has a wide network of connections in big cities in China. She keeps her knowledge up to date by taking Chinese online courses. She is fluent in English, Finnish, and Chinese. Hua’s areas of expertise include sourcing and procurement, digital marketing, as well as mainland China market entry, localization and business development. We sincerely welcome Hua to join the team!

As a part of Iranian delegation visit from Sanandaj chamber of commerce (Kurdistan province) to Finland in October 2016, there were discussions with Valio about future collaborations in diary industry. The negotiations were initiated by introductory presentations of both sides about their current situations and market shares. Also, Valio’s representatives stated their new policy for emerging to the new markets like the whole Middle East and also reconsidering Iran market. The session was followed by proposing opportunities forcollaboration, which were basically Valio’s technology transfer to Iran, new production lines in Iran under licenses of Valio, and possible JV projects, in case of having financial feasibility.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told about decision during press conference with his Finnish colleague Sauli Niinistö in Tehran in the end of October 2016. Railroad will be laid via Baku and Moscow. According to Hassan Rouhani, the parties also agreed to launch direct railway service between Iran and Finland. He added that Tehran and Helsinki are interested in cooperation in other areas such as energy, transport, environment and agriculture. Both sides have expressed interest in improving relations in tourism and banking sector.

Finland’s largest sparring program for small and medium-sized companies, Kasvu Open, is about to grant the Kasvu Open Gaselli Award for the first time. The winners of this award, ten Finnish companies with the most promising prospects for growth, will be taken to Silicon Valley for five days in January 2017. During this trip, these companies will receive a tailor-made schedule for their growth plans, opportunities to network with local investors and intensive sparring on top experts.

The winners are selected from the 80 Kasvu Open finalists, who are the elite of growth-oriented participants from different industries and from various parts of Finland and who participated in Kasvu Open this year. Five best companies will receive this trip free of charge and the other five will be offered the same trip at a heavily discounted rate. The winners of the award, which is worth thousands of euros, will be announced at the culmination of the season, the Kasvu Open Carnival in October.

The Kasvu Open Gaselli Award is made possible by Nasdaq, Boardman 2020, Finnair, East Consulting Oy, KPMG, Sherpa and Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences. The partners assist companies in, for example, internationalization, securing funding, marketing, legal issues and networking with local players. The companies will also gain visibility on Nasdaq’s video screen on Times Square in New York.

– These companies are invited to make the acquaintance of local investors at business meetings that are tailored to the companies’ needs. I am extremely proud to have Nasdaq’s and Boardman 2020 expertise network’s significant support to bring together contacts, who are ready to invest their time and resources to help Finnish growth-minded companies to make the leap into the international markets, says Matti Härkönen, CEO at Kasvun Roihu Oy.

Collaboration partners support growth stories of the future

Comments by the partners of the Kasvu Open Gaselli Award:

”In the recent years, Kasvu Open has become one of the most significant growth events for small and medium-sized businesses in Finland. Nasdaq wants to follow these companies’ growth stories from the very first steps and, at a later stage, offer to list the biggest seekers of growth as an option to provide financial support for growth.” Maarit Bystedt, Director of Global Listing Services, Nasdaq Helsinki.

”The goal of the Boardman 2020 network is to improve the growth culture and the knowhow of growth in Finland. Our network of growth ventures and entrepreneurs inspires us to build our country into the best possible platform for growth-focused companies. We are excited to be part of Kasvu Open Gaselli Award and help growth ventures with their international growth.” Taru Lindeman, CEO at Boardman.

“Our role is to enable the internationalisation plans of growth-oriented companies. By being a part of the Kasvu Open Gaselli Award team we want to make sure that any new ideas created in Silicon Valley in January will be refined into international revenue as effortlessly as possible.” Jonne Pöyhtäri, Managing Director, East Consulting.

“It is wonderful to be a part of the Kasvu Open Gaselli Award. Through our participation, we want to remind companies of the fact that enabling growth is not only about engaging investors in impressive elevator speeches. The earlier companies invest in their brands, stories and messages, the better and faster they will grow.” Pauli Waroma, CEO, Sherpa.

“In recent years, our experts have been closely involved in the Kasvu Open event. We consider Kasvu Open as an excellent opportunity to meet growing startups and assist them with their questions about issues in auditing, taxation, legal and information services. For us, being involved in the award is a natural way to offer our support to the growth companies of the future.” Jani-Pekka Hietala, Sales Manager KPMG Oy Ab.

“As a long-term partner of Kasvu Open, we are proud of the extent to which Kasvu Open currently operates in the ecosystem of growth. We have years of experience of working in Silicon Valley so this new award makes it possible for our knowhow to be utilised for years to come.” Pekka Jääskö, Business Director, Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences.

The Kasvu Open Gaselli Award is produced by Kasvun Roihu Oy. Kasvu Open is organised by the non-profit-distributing Kasvu Open Oy, whose stakeholders are Central Finland Chamber of Commerce, Kasvun Roihu Oy, Jykes Oy and Aava&Bang Oy. The organisation is Finland’s largest company sparring program that supports the growth and internationalisation of small and medium-sized businesses in different industries all over Finland, free of charge. Altogether 349 companies and over 950 Finnish business experts participated this year. The culmination of the season is the Kasvu Open Carnival on October 26th-27th, when the best growth companies in Finland will be selected from the 80 finalists.

Heidi Länsisalmi joins East Consulting’s team in Jyväskylä. Heidi has a M.Sc. degree in Business and Economics from University of Turku majoring in Creative Business Management. Heidi has solid experience in business development and entrepreneurship and also Bachelor´s Degree in Entrepreneurship from Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences. Previously Heidi has worked as a Business Developer with service sector SME´s at Jyväskylä Regional Development Company Jykes Ltd. and been a member of national Creative Industries Network. Heidi possesses good organizing and development skills and is proficient in mastering customer projects.

Houra Saghafifar joins East Consulting’s team in Jyväskylä. Houra holds a Master degree in Arts from University of Jyvaskyla. She also has a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Isfahan University of Technology, one of the highest ranked universities in Iran. Working in different fields and industries for almost a decade in Iran and then getting involved in Neuroscience research in Finland makes her a diverse background from quality and project management to technology and research.

Her job experiences in Iran finalized with ‘Standard Expert’s Permit’, license issued by Iranian national standards organization, which authorized her for supervision over the implementation of specialized quality management and environmental systems. After moving to Finland and in order to synchronize her managerial skills to the new multicultural society, besides her studies, she has been participating in various business courses in university and Jyvaskyla region’s start-up programs.

Her main language skills are native Persian, proficient user of English and independent user of Finnish. Houra’s work consists of assisting East Consulting mainly in projects related to the Iranian market. We sincerely welcome Houra to join the team!

East Consulting Russian team unit is happy to announce the joining of a new member. Elena Yatsook is a very experienced professional when talking about cross-border cooperation and internationalization processes. Elena has long been involved in marketing and sales activities in such Finnish companies as “Finprod” (which supplied food products, manufactured by a number of Finnish firms to Russia) and Jyväskylä´s Regional Development Company Jykes Ltd. (that helps companies from Central Finland to seek partnership and to establish their businesses in Russia).

Elena’s key activity in East Consulting would be focused on the project “Russia Business Point” targeting Finnish businessmen from the regions of Hämeenlinna, Forssa, Riihimäki and Janakkala by assisting them to enter the Russian market and operate there.

Elena holds two Masters’ degrees in Chemistry and World Economics and besides Russian speaks English and Finnish languages.

East Consulting is proud to announce that in February 2016 we have started our cooperation with Nordic Business Forum. Nordic Business Forum is the biggest business event in Europe, annually uniting over 5700 entrepreneurs and business leaders from over 30 countries. Each year Nordic Business Forum holds two incredible days with the worlds brightest minds and future business leaders. In 2016 the forum is held in Helsinki on 6-7 October.

This year it would turn Marketing, Digitalization and Culture into your competitive advantage.

More about these and other speakers online: http://www.nbforum.com/nbf2016/speakers/
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